Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.
– Ray Bradbury
The dazzling sunlight shone through the large glass windows of the Letište Václava Havla Praha. I was trying to sleep. The brightness wasn't the only thing keeping me awake; there was also the anxiety and the exhaustion, result of a sleepless night, during an eight-hour long journey, on the train that brought us from Budapest Keleti to Praha Hlavní Nádraží, where we took a taxi to the airport. To all this was added a disquieting thought that I couldn't shake off my mind: What could have happened.
The train 376 bound for Prague would leave at 20h00. Jorge and I had arrived early, around 17h00, because we had nothing else to do in the city. While we waited, we walked around the station; we watched the trains arriving and departing; the passengers running, arriving, boarding, and dismounting. We dined in a restaurant, looked at the shop windows, and marvelled at the beauty of the mosaics in the station lobby.
An electronic board was listing the number of the trains, and the platform from where they were leaving, or to which they were arriving. Strange names, at least to me, paraded across the horizontal panels of the big screen: Sulysap, Gyula, Sopron, Szombathely, Hatvan, Kosice, Eger; only Berlin, and Wien were familiar. For the sake of clarity, on each platform was a sign indicating which train was arriving or departing. Ours was not on the board yet, as it was too early.
At 19h30 no sign on any platform, indicated our train; the board didn't show it either. I started to worry. At 19h45 I told Jorge that we should go to the window where the tickets were sold, to ask.
There was a long line of people in front of it. I was agitated and impatient; time was pressing. When our turn finally arrived, I asked the girl at the window whether she knew from which platform train 376 bound for Prague was going to depart. I told her that neither the board nor any sign on any platform indicated it. To make my uneasiness even worse, the girl did not know. She retired to the office behind her to inquire. And then she rushed out, flustered. She told us that the train was departing from platform number 5, and that we had to hurry, because it was about to leave.
We had been in Central Europe for three weeks. We were dragging two large suitcases. Pulling the heavy luggage, we hurried back to the platforms, looking for number 5, but the number on the sign standing next to it was 223. I panicked. I got on the train and asked one of the passengers if that was the train going to Prague. She said yes.
I ran down the train, looked for Jorge, and panting told him that this was our train. Then Jorge, with a surprised and pale face, told me: “William, the train is leaving.” When I turned my face to look, I was terrified to see that the train was beginning to move. Without thinking twice, we raced, dragging our heavy suitcases, chasing the speeding train, until we reached the last car. By a struck of luck or serendipity, the boarding door on the last car was still open. Why, I don't know, but that was a chance event that made things possible. I managed to lift my bulky travel bag, and throw it into the car; then I jumped onto the step, grabbed the handlebars, and was able to climb inside.
However, as the train picked up speed, Jorge was still behind, running, chasing it along the platform, hauling his luggage. Stunned, I was trying to decide what to do. On the one hand, I couldn't leave him behind. If he didn’t manage to get on the train, I was going to have to throw my suitcase back on the platform, and jump out. On the other hand, I thought that if we missed the train, we would miss the plane the next morning, in Prague. And Czech Airlines only had one flight, three times a week.
“Jorge, leave the suitcase behind, so that you can run faster!” I yelled.
His suitcase only contained his clothes. Everything else that was important, the photographic equipment, the documents, the money, was either in his pockets or in his backpack. The bewilderment I noticed on his face made me understand that Jorge was undecided. I thought that if he didn't do it right then and there, then it would be too late. Suddenly, at that very moment, I don’t know from where, a tall and stocky man appeared and yanked Jorge’s suitcase from his hands. Next, he ran until he reached the train, and threw the baggage into the wagon where I was standing. Freed from the obstacle of the suitcase, Jorge was then able to run faster, catch up with us, hold the door bar, and hop onto the wagon.
Still paralyzed by the surprise of what had just happened, we stood by the open door, watching the figure of the stranger, which became smaller and smaller, until it disappeared in the distance. Then we sat on the floor, staring at each other, dumbfounded.
“What the fuck was that?” I said.
“Holy Cow!” He exclaimed.
“Where did that guy come from?” I asked.
“I don’t know”, he answered. “I only know that I was running, and suddenly someone appeared out of nowhere, and took the suitcase from my hand. I thought he was stealing it”.
“Can you imagine?” I said. “If we had missed the train, we would also have missed the plane tomorrow in Prague. Holy! This is the kind of stuff you see in movies!”
After the shock and the fright had subsided, we started to laugh like insane people. But not only because of the near tragedy that we had avoided, also to release the tension and fear, which had reached an unbearable level. When we found our seats, after greeting our compartment mates, Jorge settled down, and after a short while he fell asleep peacefully. Lucky him! I couldn’t sleep all night.
Czech Airlines Flight 102 took off at exactly 11h25, and headed northwest on a journey of almost 7,000 kilometres. After having flown over the British Isles and Greenland, the aircraft would change direction to the southwest, and after having flown over Newfoundland and La Gaspésie, it would land at Toronto Pearson International Airport. When I had Lake Ontario and the CN Tower on my left hand side, looking out the window, I knew that I had finally arrived home.
Before landing, I once more remembered what had taken place in Budapest, and what one of the passengers with whom we shared the cabin, said, after, while Jorge was sleeping, I related to him what had happened to us. He told me that many people have given account of similar stories, of being in trouble at the station, and that some stranger had materialized, in a baffling way, and had come to their aid. It was said that during the 1956 insurrection, a dissident who was running after the train, because he had missed it, pursued by an agent of the Államvédelmi Hatóság (the secret police), who was pointing a gun at him, jumped onto the train, staggered, fell, and was run over by the heavy vehicle. The mutilated body scandalized everyone. And since then, it is said that the station is haunted, but, gladly, not by a spectre that terrorizes the passengers, instead, by one that lends a helping hand.
© 2020, text and photograph, William Almonte Jimenez,
